


dispenser of provisions

by hfszn



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Lowercase, POV Second Person, also forgot:, also not beta read so rip, but its from Reids pov i swear, fuck that guy sorry, mostly just speculating on Spencers childhood, not William Reid positive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26369116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hfszn/pseuds/hfszn
Summary: your mother names you spencer--seven letters, two syllables, english, from the latindispensatorem, meaning dispenser of provisions--and you wonder, not for the first time, how she knew you would give away all of yourself without question just to keep others whole.
Relationships: Diana Reid & Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & William Reid
Comments: 10
Kudos: 36





	dispenser of provisions

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Thy Name Is Mine Enemy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25099372) by [pied_pollo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pied_pollo/pseuds/pied_pollo). 



> hi this is my first work for cm, my first time using this kind of prose, and my first time writing from a characters 2nd pov so please be gentle, thank you

you are six years old and you know more than any other six year old does and you don’t think your father likes you very much.

love is not something you know much of just yet. you know that your mother’s love comes easy, pouring over you as you show her all of the words you know, all of the books you remember word for word. she smiles at you and calls you her _baby boy_ , tells you about chaucer and the first valentine poem, reads you charles dickens as she tucks you into bed and kisses your forehead. your father’s love, however, has always been something much more akin to a drought, like rain in the las vegas suburbs you grew up in. you tell him you’ll try to play sports with the other kids, that you’ll read less and play more, and you think he looks happy when he drives you out to the field and you want to savor that. 

you want him to like you but you can’t hold back your statistics of baseball injuries as you hold the brand new bat in your too-small hands, can’t fight against complaining about germs as you watch another kid stick his hands into the dirt before picking his nose, can’t stop the tears in your eyes and the sobs that bubble out of your throat because everything is too loud and too bright and _too much_.

he has always been big and strong and tall in all of the ways that you are not and he is walking away from you as you sit, lip quivering and shoulders shaking, on the bench next to the water cooler and spare balls. you hate that you’re more familiar with the sight of his back than his smile. he’s always walking away from you. 

you are only six years old, half the size and twice as smart as the other six-year-old boys in your neighborhood, and you still think that he will always come back.

\--

you are ten years old and your father is packing a suitcase that looks a lot bigger than the one he usually packs for his business trips and, for the first time in a really long time, you wish you didn’t know so many things you weren’t supposed to know.

your father and your mother spend more time yelling at each other than they do hugging and you read, once, in a book you don’t think your father would like you reading, that it will likely lead to a divorce. divorce--seven letters, two syllables, late middle english, from the latin _divortium_ , meaning to legally dissolve one’s marriage, to separate or dissociate something from something else--isn’t a word you like very much. your mother tells you that there is no such thing as a bad word, that all words can be used in a good way if you try hard enough, but you have a hard time fitting the word divorce around your baby teeth in a way that doesn’t make everything feel crowded, like you’re choking on the hard to swallow syllables.

your father’s words swim in the air around the three of you, suffocating you in phrases you shouldn’t even be old enough to understand. your mother has been having more bad days than good recently, has been forgetting the day and the time and to eat and to take care of herself, but you’ve been trying your best to take care of both of you and your father doesn’t like that. 

you tell him that children who grow up in two-parent households statistically complete three more years of higher education than children who grow up in single-parent households because you want him to stay more than you want him to like you. you tell yourself that it’s okay if he doesn’t like you because he doesn’t like a lot of things anymore and he must just be tired. you think that this will pass, like it always does, because he is your father and your father always comes back when he leaves.

your mother calls him weak--four letters, one syllable, old english, from the proto-germanic _waika_ , meaning lacking in physical strength, of a low standard--and he tells you goodbye like he is done talking about this. he does not say i love you and you think, absently, that maybe he is done with lying too.

you tell your mother that you are not weak, because you are not weak in the same way that your father knows that he is, and you try to smile as she pulls you into her arms, your face buried in the fabric of her sweater. her hugs are warm and it feels like she’s holding you together because you think your father must have taken a piece of you with him in his suitcase by mistake. 

it is just you and your mother now but you tell yourself that this is okay. you learn to make sandwiches and take yourself to school, to hide the bruises and make sure she does more than just reread old books. more often than not you end up in bed with her instead of dragging her out but this is okay because she is safe and she is happy and she is proud of you that makes you happy in a way you never could be before.

you think about him, your father, often in a way that makes your chest ache and your eyes water. grief--five letters, one syllable, middle english, from the old french _grever_ , meaning deep sorrow--is not a feeling you found yourself well acquainted with until he left. it swallows you whole some nights, invites anger and regret to join in the meal, and you know there is nothing you can do about it. he is a wound that will never heal and you think that you deserve this. 

william wanted a normal life, with a normal family and a normal kid, and you know that you are not that kid, that you can never be that kid. 

you are only ten years old and you know that he is not coming back, not now and not ever, and you know that you will miss him, even if he does not miss you, and you think you will be okay with that. 

\--

you are eighteen years old, the youngest graduate student at caltech, and you’re doing your best not to cry as you send your mother away. 

you tell her that you’re doing this for her, that you just want to help her, and you tell yourself that this is the truth. 

schizophrenia--modern latin, from the greek _skhizein_ and _phrēn_ , meaning a long-term mental disorder that affects a person's ability to think, behave, and feel--is not a bad word. there is no such thing as a bad word but the word has to claw its way out of your throat while you’re on the phone with the hospital to arrange for her to be picked up.

if you could, you would drive her there yourself but she was never well enough to teach you how to drive. she was never well enough to do much of anything, even on her good days, but you can’t help the feeling of guilt settling deep into your stomach.

you’re her son, her only son, the only one she has left and this feels like a betrayal.

ever since your father walked out on you two with little more than a goodbye, you swore you would take care of her. you thought you knew, better than anyone else, how to help her, how to make her better. when you were younger than you are now, still just a boy with naivety coating your skin, you told her that you would cure schizophrenia and you wonder if she remembers that. you wonder if she always knew that you couldn’t. 

she’s begging you not to let them take her, to tell them to leave. she swears that she doesn’t need help, that she’s _fine_ , that they can’t do this, and it hurts you more than you could admit. 

you think she looks a lot like you did back in high school, frail and sickly and scarily thin, and a lot like you still do now with tears rimming her eyes. you wonder if she sees herself the same way you do. you wonder what she would do if she could. 

she’s crying and it’s your fault and you know that. she’s crying and you can’t look away no matter how much you want to, can’t do anything but watch as she’s lifted from her seat by men she doesn’t know--you know how much she must hate you for having men she doesn’t know touch her--and being taken away. you do not hug her goodbye because you were never that type of family. goodbyes are a permanence you could never afford anymore, one you know you are not allowed now. instead, you tell her that you’re sorry when you know it means nothing. there are a million things you want to say to her but you don’t. you don’t do much more than just stand there, tears dripping down your cheeks not much unlike her own, and let her go. you watch her go and the room is reminiscent of a magic act; now you see her, now you don’t. 

you think she took a piece of you with her as she left, dragged it out of you hard enough to leave claw marks on your heart, a gaping hole in your chest, but you think that maybe it is better kept with her. she is your mother, no matter what happens, and you will always love her even if she does not love you. 

you are eighteen, somehow old enough to make decisions you know you will be hated for and still yet young enough to cry over them, and it feels more like you’re standing in a graveyard than a home. 

\--

you are twenty-two and it is your first day at the BAU and no one knows you as the kid with the dad who walked out and the schizophrenic mom. 

instead, gideon introduces you as dr. spencer reid, fresh from the academy even though most kids your age are still waiting to get in, more brain than brawn and more sense than speed, and you smile, play up the genius card, and try your best to focus on memorizing names and faces. 

this, you tell yourself, as you settle into your desk and try to ignore the stares and the whispers and what must be the profiling even though you know gideon told you inter-team profiling wasn’t allowed, is not a bad thing. 

it is a new start, a fresh beginning, a chance to define yourself that does not start with who you were but rather with who you are. 

you think, hopefully, that this will be a good thing.

**Author's Note:**

> hi thank you for reading (it genuinely means a lot to me), please feel free to let me know your thoughts/feelings/anything (and also please feel free to follow me on tumblr @criminalszn) thank you again


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